BRUTAL MURDER
ALLEGED MS-13 gang members have been charged in the murder of a 16-year-old girl they are suspected of luring to a park where they "killed her and hid the body."
Police believe the five suspects lured victim Gabriela Alejandra Gonzalez Ardon to the Loch Raven Reservoir, about half an hour north of Baltimore, in May.
1
There, the five killed her because of a potential affiliation with a rival gang, according to police.
Asael Ezequie Gonzalez-Merlos, 16, Jonathan Pesquera-Puerto, 19, Wualter Hernandez-Orellana, 19, Edys O. Valenzuella-Rodriguez, 20, and Wilson Art Constanza-Galdomez, 21, have been arrested in her death.
All five are being held without bond.
Gonzalez Ardon was reported missing from her home in Nassau County, New York, last summer.
The suspects were already being held in the Baltimore County Detention Center for other alleged crimes.
They have been charged with first-degree murder and related charges.
All of the suspects, including the 16-year-old, will be charged as adults in her murder.
"They knew the victim," Baltimore County Police Sergeant Vickie Warehime said.
"The motivation for this crime was that they believed she had been communicating to a rival gang."
However, seeing gang violence in Baltimore is far from the norm, former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah said.
"To see MS-13 out in the county is alarming and unusual," he said.
However, the alleged luring and killing fall right in line with what he said he's seen as a prosecutor.
Most read in News
"They don't discriminate," Vignarajah said of MS-13 members. "Both between who they target, but also who they recruit into their membership."
This is the second time alleged MS-13 gang activity had occurred in northern Baltimore County in Maryland.
Last year, seven people were arrested for the alleged murder of Daniel Alejandro Cuellar, who was found dead outside an apartment building in Towson, 20 minutes north of Baltimore.